


The Darkness Drops Again

by Parda



Series: Blood Cousins [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angel Blood, Angels, Apocalypse, Demon Blood, Supernatural Season 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-28
Updated: 2016-01-29
Packaged: 2018-05-16 20:06:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5839189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Parda/pseuds/Parda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Michael finds a willing vessel, Dean and Sam trail a hot chick in a powder-blue Corvette, and the Heavenly Father and the Holy Mother keep watch as their children set loose the Apocalypse.  (This story was formerly the beginning of "Lift the Veil" but it's been split into shorter stories and linked as a series.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Widening Gyre

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Michael the Archangel starts his war

### Among the Stars of Heaven

“It begins.”

The Mother turns, spinning on her axis, for in this age she has taken the form of a star. She dances with planets, pulls comets into her realm, and sets the darkness alight.

The Son has come to dance with her, light-years away, his star ablaze in white and blue. “The first seal on Lucifer’s cage has been broken,” he tells her. “Heaven laid siege to Hell to bring the vessel Dean Winchester back to Earth. The other vessels await.”

The Mother flares, so that tongues of flame reach out to lick the planet closest to her. Its very rocks dissolve into gases, an act of destruction sublime. Creation will follow, in time.

“It began long ago,” she replies. What began in joy became sorrow. Love had become hate. And sorrow might become joy once more. “Now it begins again.”

The Father is already in place, creating the prophecies that must be fulfilled. The Mother leaves the stars to their dancing, a minuet of precision and power. In the ceaseless flow between matter and energy and darkness and light, the particles change partners, change tempo, change space and time itself. Gravity and other forces order them, and they obey.

Her disobedient children need her, and she goes.

### The Garrison of Heaven

“Castiel is dead,” Raphael reports to Michael as the two archangels join in conclave, two only of the four. Only two, where there should be four, four archangels created to be the four pillars of Heaven: Samael, Michael, Raphael, Gabriel. Once their names had rolled out to the four corners of the universe, and all had answered, joyful to be the servants of El.

Only two are present now. Their wings touch, their flames mingle, and only truth can lie between them, for they taste each others' minds. “That angel is no more,” Raphael affirms.

“Yet Castiel lives again,” replies Michael. The words are mild, measured and serene. Flames shimmer with rage. “See.” He opens a window into the time when Castiel emerged from beyond the veil, perfect and new-formed, gleaming wings unfurled across the sky. All of Castiel’s eyes are open, and the search takes but an instant. Castiel dives to Earth, straight to the Winchester brothers, whom Zachariah and two companions are showing the error of their ways. In his vessel form, Castiel kills the two angels with a silver blade and orders Zachariah to go. Castiel then carves Enochian sigils into the humans’ ribs.

After that, Raphael and Michael can see no more. Michael closes the window into time with a snap. “Only an archangel or God can bring an angel back to life.”

Raphael gleams golden and righteous. “I am the one who killed Castiel for his disobedience. I would not undo what I had done.”

“I taste this truth in you,” Michael agrees. “It certainly was not I.”

“I taste this truth in you,” Raphael formally acknowledges in turn.

“And since our Father is gone,” Michael continues, “that leaves only two.” Gabriel, the wastrel, and Samael, who had disobeyed and rebelled, losing the title of the one who brings to souls to El. After that, instead of all souls going to Heaven, as was God’s plan, some souls went to Hell, a shadowed realm. Samael had taken the name Lucifer, the bearer of light, the morning star. Blasphemy of the highest kind, for light was created by God.

And for that, Michael would kill Lucifer. Finally, the waiting was almost over. The killing would come soon.

“Gabriel cares nothing for the plans of Heaven or of Hell,” Raphael notes. “That has been clear since Lucifer was locked in the cage and Gabriel disappeared.”

“True. Yet now that the cage is open, Lucifer is free,” Michael says.

“Free to resurrect angels,” agrees Raphael. “And so Castiel lives again. Though Castiel may not know the role Lucifer has played.”

“It does not matter,” Michael says. “Castiel has always been disobedient and headstrong. We were too lenient before.”

Raphael agrees, though the screams from that discipline are still echoing even now. “Do you think Lucifer will raise Uriel, too?”

“Yes and probably soon. Uriel believed in Lucifer’s blasphemous cause. As did others.” They count the names and find the number too high. And there is still more of concern. “Lucifer is also free also to recruit.”

“Gabriel?” Raphael asks softly then answers: “Yes. Those two were ever a pair. Gabriel would follow again. And others might follow Gabriel, when they would never follow Lucifer.”

Michael does not need prophecy to see what will be. “And so Lucifer builds an army, to set the hosts of Heaven aflame once more.”

“This is what we wanted,” Raphael reminds Michael. “The final war, which we shall win. We can resurrect the angels loyal to us that Uriel had killed. We can build our own army, make it the glory of Heaven. For in the end, Michael, you shall triumph over Lucifer. You must.”

“Yes,” Michael replies. “In the end, I will.” The two archangels part in a flare of searing white and red and gold, their conclave done.

Michael sets his attention on the small blue planet, half-hidden behind its veil of clouds. A lovely world once, dirtied now by human hands, its waters fouled, its air unclean. There the final battle would happen, as the prophecies foretold. There the Apocalypse would come. Fire would cleanse that world, leaving it pure. Souls would come to Heaven, as God had planned long ago, and leave the planet empty and lovely once again.

There Michael would triumph over Lucifer, destroying the angel who had first defied God.

But God’s law bars the angels from the planet until they find willing vessels and take on human form. Generations ago, Michael set the cherubim to the tedious task of ensuring breeding pairs, creating useful bloodlines so that the prophecy might be fulfilled. Several vessels are of the proper age. Yet God had also given humans the gift of free will, and the vessel Dean has just said no.

Michael sets out to teach the vessel Dean the proper way to behave. “No,” Dean keeps repeating. “No way.” Michael takes no comfort in knowing that Lucifer’s chosen vessel is also saying no. It is only a matter of time. It is all a matter of time.

So when Lucifer takes a temporary vessel, Michael turns to other plans. All the while the angels circle, watching, waiting, and the prophecies begin to be fulfilled.

### Fall 2009 - Dayton, Ohio

Ruth’s brother called her in October. “How’s it going?” Nathan asked, his image lagging just a bit behind the sound on her laptop screen.

“Ok,” she replied, sitting cross-legged on her bed and hugging a pillow in her arms. Her brother was unshaven, his hair needed combing and a trim, and his flight suit had a smear of grease along one sleeve. “You look terrible,” she said. “What did you do? Join the Air Force?”

“Nah,” Nathan said with a grin. “All they have is jets. I want to keep flying real aircraft, so I’m staying in the Marines.”

“Good,” she said, keeping the smile on her face. At least one of them could. She’d planned to stay in, even been thinking about putting in for officers’ candidate school, but those bullets a year ago and the medical discharge had taken care of that. “How is it there?” she asked.

“Busy for us this week. We just landed.” He rubbed the back of his fingers over his scruffy cheek in silent explanation. “But things are slowing down on the ground, so that’s good. How’s your new job with that building company in Ohio?”

“Boring to the point of insanity,” Ruth said. “I heard a story about one guy who took a fire poker to his work station after he’d been there for three weeks.”

“Why did he have a fire poker at work?”

Ruth shrugged. “That’s the story.”

“And how many weeks have you been there?”

“Four,” she replied, her moroseness only partly for show. “It feels like four years. But it’s a job and it pays the bills. I’m doing OK.”

Nathan’s eyebrows started touching across the bridge of his nose, a sure sign of disbelief and suspicion. “Are you—”

“Yes, I’m seeing my counselor,” Ruth broke in. “Yes, I’m eating and exercising regularly. I go to a horse barn on Saturdays and I go to church on Sundays. I’m not drinking too much and I’m not using drugs and I sleep through the night.” Most nights, anyway. “I am doing OK.”

“All right, all right, all right,” Nathan said rapidly, holding up his hands in surrender. “Just checking, you know?”

“Yeah,” Ruth said, calming down. “I know.” She’d seen the suicide statistics on veterans.

“How’s the arm?”

“Better. I’m taking a knitting class. It helps with dexterity.” Her arm would never be full strength again. She’d lost too much muscle, and the bone was held together with screws. But she still had both her hands and all her fingers, and she was lucky, she knew.

“Any nightmares?” he asked.

He was still checking up on her. Ruth didn’t mind, not really. He was taking care of her, the same way she took care of him. “Nothing too weird,” she said. “You?”

He shrugged. “Some. But I’m still over here.” He dragged his hand down over his mouth then asked, “Any more angel dreams?”

“Not since May,” she said with relief. Nathan nodded but didn’t say anything. She looked her brother over more carefully. He seemed the same as ever—brown hair, brown eyes, nice smile with one crooked tooth from a hockey puck in a pick-up game years ago—but his eyes were serious and he had that look he got when he wanted to say something but didn’t know how. Ruth tossed him a line. “What are your angel dreams like?”

“They’re—” Nathan stopped then shook his head at her with fond exasperation, so she stuck her tongue out at him, the way they used to do. That got a laugh, but then he got serious. “It’s the same dream, every time. There’s just one angel, and he’s circling above me, around and around, like he’s watching over me.”

Ruth shuddered, remembering her childhood terror of the vultures who circled above road kill. She’d refused to go out in the open, certain they were after her. But that had been silly. “That’s what angels do, isn’t it?” Ruth asked, playing—well, it wasn’t devil’s advocate … Angel’s advocate? Whatever. “Angels watch over us; that’s what they say.”

“Like our ‘garden angel’ from when we were four,” Nathan agreed.

“When did the dreams start?” she asked.

“A month ago, I guess.”

“Do you think our ‘garden angel’ is the one in your dreams?”

“I have no idea,” he answered. “All I can see are wings.” Then Nathan and she shared a shrug, because there wasn’t much else to say and there wasn’t anything they could do. “How are Mom and Dad?” he asked.

“Fine. Almost settled into the new house in Madelia, though I think Dad misses his workshop back in Blue Earth. All he has now is the basement. And Mom is finally done rearranging the furniture. I hope.”

“Almost makes me glad I’m not there,” Nathan said, because Mom’s “rearranging” was legendary.

They talked a while, of the crazy weather in different places, of a movie he had seen and how the World Series was going, but Nathan was yawning, and Ruth knew how rare and precious sack time was. “You take care,” she said, and they each reached out a hand to the screen, trying to touch each other. Ruth said softly, “Semper Fi,” because that belonged to two of them now, as well as to the Corps, and it had always and would always be true.

“Semper Fi,” he answered, with a sweet smile and a serious nod, and then his hand came forward and he disappeared from the screen.

He called at Christmas, too, when Ruth was back with their folks, but mostly they sent emails back and forth. It was easier with the time zones. On New Year’s Day, she drove her new Corvette (twenty years old, actually, but a Christmas gift from her Aunt Jen, so it was new to Ruth) back to Ohio, and on Monday she was back at her boring job.

Early in February, Ruth packed up a couple of boxes of cookies and food and mailed them to Nathan and to her old unit, even though a lot of the people she remembered had moved on. On St. Valentine’s Day, Dad sent her flowers as usual. Nathan sent her an e-card with blooming flowers and caterpillars dancing to Lady Gaga’s song _Bad Romance_. She laughed for a while then printed a screen capture and opened her shoe box of mementos.

The necklace Eli had given her lay on top, a crystal star of many points upon a black silk string, still neatly coiled in its little red box. Ruth gently touched the box’s clear plastic cover, but she didn’t open it this year. She put Dad’s card from the flowers and the computer print-out of the caterpillars in the shoebox, covering everything below. Then she set the lid back on and stored the shoebox in the closet.

Nathan called two days after St. Valentine’s Day, right after she got home from work. “Happy birthday!”

“Happy birthday,” she told her twin. He looked tired and his eyes were haunted, so she didn’t make jokes about his appearance today. “You OK?” He shrugged, so she persisted, “Bad dreams? Angel dreams?”

“What? Oh. No.”

“Me, either,” she said, reassured.

“Someone did send an angel-food cake in a care package. It was so stale we used it like a soccer ball.”

“Good use for it,” Ruth said. She didn’t like angel-food cake even when it was fresh.

“Hey, thanks for sending the peanut-butter cookies,” he said next.

“You’re welcome,” she said. They’d been his favorite since he was five. “Thank you for the e-card. But really: caterpillars and Lady Gaga?”

“Did you laugh?”

“Well, yeah.” She’d had to. It was utterly ridiculous.

“Good,” he said, and his smile was totally satisfied. But it didn’t last long. “I’m going on a mission soon, Ruth. Black ops.”

She knew better than to ask for details. “Serious, huh?”

He nodded, his face grim. “It could change the whole war, even the whole world.”

All Ruth could manage was: “Wow. How do you rate?”

He grinned at her, lightning quick and cute, what her high-school friend Lisa had referred to as his Tom-Cruise-smile, before saying, “My good looks and boyish charm.”

“Right,” Ruth said with a snort.

Nathan was serious again. “I won’t be in touch for a while. So tell Mom and Dad if they ask, but don’t worry, OK?”

She would always worry about him. But he knew that, and he didn’t need to hear it, not now. “Semper Fi,” she said, putting her hand to the screen.

He did the same, their fingers matching up even though they couldn’t touch each other at all. “Semper Fi.”

* * *

Nathan waited for the image of his twin to disappear completely before he shut down the computer. He folded the laptop and zipped it up in its case. The room had been stripped, even the sheets were off the bed. All his gear was neatly stowed.

“Are you ready?” came the voice from the corner.

Nathan knew not to look that way. Angels burned. He nodded, mouth suddenly dry, with the taste of cinnamon on his tongue. He'd told Ruth he hadn't been dreaming of angels lately, and that was true. Angels were real.

“Are you willing?” the voice asked this time.

“Yes,” Nathan answered, now standing tall. “Tell Michael." He looked up to heaven, spread his arms and opened his hands. "I say yes.”


	2. So Long to Devotion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Michael is disappointed, and Sam and Dean both lose

### The Garrison of Heaven

The angels known to humans as “cupids” huddle together and cower, their wings covering their eyes, their flames barely glimmers. Yet there is nowhere to hide in heaven’s clear skies.

“The vessel Nathan was flawed,” Michael informs them. Each word is precise and sharp as a ruby’s edge.

“Archangel, that bloodline is clear,” the angel named Anahita protests. “All was done properly. I prepared that vessel for your presence myself.”

Anahita explodes, touched by an angel of highest degree. Those nearby whimper in pain, caught by the blast of Michael’s rage. They gag on the stench of charred feathers and the taste of boiled blood. They separate from each other, still cowering, but Michael has already turned away.

Michael calls for Zachariah, and the cherub answers immediately, faithful as always, eager to obey. The beak of its eagle face is slightly open; the eyes of its human face gleam. “Break Dean Winchester,” Michael orders Zachariah. “Turn him into a willing vessel. Soon.”

### Wednesday, 3 March 2010 – Dayton, Ohio

About two weeks after the birthday call, Mom called Ruth at work and said, “Nathan’s missing.”

Ruth couldn’t even swallow, and her stomach felt like lead. “Missing in action?” Going MIA in Iraq usually meant kidnapping, torture, and death, often by beheading.

“No, missing from his squadron.”

Ruth closed her eyes as relief flooded through her, and she managed to breathe.

“A captain called us, looking for him,” Mom went on. “The captain said Nathan was late coming back from his leave.”

“Nathan would never do that,” Ruth said flatly. “And he wasn’t on leave.”

“Yes, he was,” Mom contradicted. “He had a ten-day pass and he got on a plane to Germany on February seventeenth. But no one has seen him since.”

Ruth’s dread was uncoiling into a tangled knot of confusion and concern. Maybe the leave had been a cover story for the black op? But if it was running late, they should have at least told Nathan’s CO. “I’ll ask around,” Ruth said, and she left work early to make phone calls to friends and write emails to officials, trying to track Nathan down. She called in “sick” the next day so she could be by the phone.

Around sunset, she went for a walk to get some fresh air. As far as she could tell, she’d been the last person Nathan had spoken to before he disappeared, and she had absolutely no idea where he’d gone. Nobody else had heard about any black op, and even though Nathan’s CO had told her he’d ask about it, he’d made it clear he thought Nathan had made it all up. Mom and Dad were freaking out, and the captain was starting to ask questions about Nathan’s drug use, black market connections, romantic involvements, and whether or not he was gay.

Ruth went to work at Sandover the next morning and asked for indefinite leave. They said no, so she quit and walked out the door. She tossed her personal stuff in her Corvette, mailed some things to her folks’ house, and abandoned the rest. Then she hit the road for home. She got to her parents’ house in the middle of the night, and they talked until dawn, trying to comfort each other as best they could. Their best wasn’t very good.

The next day wasn’t any better. She was about to book a flight to Germany when the police called. Nathan had been found in Detroit, wandering the streets in a daze.

“Thank God he’s alive,” Mom said with tears on her cheeks.

That’s what they all thought. Then.

### Thursday, 11 March 2010 - On the Road

“We need to go to Des Moines,” Sam told Dean without looking up from his laptop.

Dean was packed before Sam had even closed all the computer windows and powered down. Dean was sick of getting nowhere, of not knowing where to go or what to do or how to stop the coming juggernaut of an apocalypse or how to get the damned angels out of his life. He was ready to move, and he didn’t care much where. So it wasn’t until they were in the Impala and cruising on a highway toward Iowa that Dean asked, “What’s in Des Moines?”

“A library collection on apocalyptic literature.”

“Say that three times fast,” Dean challenged then tried to do it himself. “Apacolyptic, apopalyptic, apoptalittic… You try it.”

“A pop tart,” Sam replied.

That ended the game but reminded Dean that breakfast had been a while ago. They weren’t going to make Des Moines until after dark, and the library books would have to wait until morning. Dean eased the speed up to eighty, the tires humming sweetly on the road.

It was nearly seven o’clock when they got into town. They found a room at a motel then went looking for dinner, ending up a bar and grill with a sign that advertised “Best Steak Sandwiches in Town!” They weren’t the best Dean had ever had, but they were pretty damn good, with mushrooms and cheese and grilled onions on thin-sliced steak piled high. Sam had ordered a salad and a grilled chicken breast with steamed vegetables on the side.

Sam caught Dean looking at his plate and said, “Let me guess: fries are better than vegetables.”

“Fries are vegetables,” Dean replied but then shrugged. They usually gave each other a hard time about their food choices, but what was the point of that anymore? “Eat what you like,” Dean said sincerely. “I’m going to.” He took a bite of his steak sandwich and chewed with his eyes closed, enjoying his dinner.

While his eyes were open, he enjoyed the scenery. Their booth was close to the restrooms, and woman after woman walked by their table. Usually, he would have done more than look, especially with that girl in the tight red sweater, but somehow, after all the fighting and dying he’d done lately, he wasn’t in the mood.

But on the other hand, he wasn’t dead, either. Not yet. So when he saw a tall, slender brunette pick up the darts for a solo game, he strolled over—then walked right past her and into the john. Being _too_ obvious spooked the game. On his way out, he stopped to watch her throw a dart into the double ring of the nine. “Playing around the clock?” he asked, for darts were also stuck in the six, the seven, and the eight. She gave him a quick glance, nodded, then threw a ten with a smooth easy flick of her left hand.

Which, Dean noticed, did not have a wedding ring. She wasn’t wearing any jewelry, at least none he could see. Her clothes—black boots, blue jeans, and a green knitted sweater over a black turtleneck— covered most of her, which was sensible this far north at this time of year. She looked serious as well as sensible, even stern, like a teacher or a librarian (Sam’s kind of librarian), though her hair was in a plain ponytail instead of a bun. Even with a ponytail, she wasn’t cute or perky, her jaw was too strong and her nose was too long, but she was still good to look at. She moved nice, too, all smooth and easy. A greyhound, Dean decided: graceful and lean.

“Care for a game?” he suggested, and after another glance at him, longer this time, she nodded.

They played silently, intently, and after three turns Dean was behind. He stopped trying to lose, his usual approach when he was playing for the girl instead of the game. This girl still beat him. “Two out of three?” Dean asked, and she nodded again. She beat him that time, too, and he’d been playing to win the whole time.

“Nice game,” Sam said to her, for of course he’d come over to watch. He raised his eyebrows at Dean.

“Yeah, nice game,” Dean agreed and gave her a cheerful smile, but got only a very quick one in return.

“Thanks,” she said then explained, “We had a dart board in the basement when I was growing up. We’d play every night after dinner.”

“Never had that kind of practice time,” Dean said. Never had a basement, either, or a family dinner every night. This past year and a half, he’d barely had time to eat, what with the angels flinging him all over creation (both time and space), and two of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse riding into town. Not to mention Jo and Ellen getting killed in January, and the dead coming back to life in Bobby’s hometown in February (courtesy of Horseman #4), or him and Sam getting killed and being forcibly given a tour of heaven last week.

“Care for a game with me?” Sam was asking Dart-Girl with one of his adorable puppy smiles, and she smiled back—a real smile—and said yes.

While they were playing, the waitress came to the table with the bill. “Figures,” Dean sighed. “He gets the chick, and I get the check.” But it was worth it, because she beat Sam, too. Twice. And she left the steakhouse without even giving him her name.

Dean almost felt like whistling as they drove back to motel. But later, as they were getting into bed, he asked, "Did you let her win?"

Sam peered at him blearily from the other bed. "What do you think?" Then he thumped his pillow and rolled over, turning his back to Dean and the light.

Dean clicked the light switch then thumped his own pillow, hard, before going to sleep.

* * *

Sam and Dean got to the library at 9:06 the next morning and went to the special collections room on the third floor to ask for the book. The woman behind the desk was another one of Sam’s kind of librarian, and she was wearing actual horn-rimmed glasses and a cardigan sweater over her button-down shirt and sensible skirt. Her nametag read “Reference Librarian - Karen Johnson”, and her only jewelry was a gold wedding band. “I’m sorry,” she told Sam. “That book is currently out.”

“It’s a reference book,” Sam said, now using his “I’m just a cute confused puppy; please help me” smile. “It doesn’t circulate.”

“Yes, but another patron is looking at it now.”

“Already?” Dean asked. “You just opened.”

Mrs. Johnson turned her head to look at the clock on the wall then looked back at him. “We opened at nine,” she informed him. “Seven minutes ago.” Then she turned to Sam. “I’ll let you know when it comes back.”

“Thank you,” Sam said then pulled out a piece of paper from his back pocket asked for another book on his list.

She checked her computer. “Yes, that one is available, and I’ll bring it to you. You must stay in this room while looking at these books. There’s a study carrel over there you can use.” She looked back and forth between the two of them. “There is to be no talking.” She left her desk with a set of keys in her hand.

“Now what?” Dean asked.

“You could go read something else,” Sam suggested, and he went to the study carrel to wait for Mrs. Johnson to return.

Dean went downstairs to the graphic novels section, hoping to pick up something fun to read. What he found were tales about vampires, werewolves, Lucifer giving away the keys to hell, monsters, mutants, and tortured superheroes trying to save the world. “Screw this,” Dean muttered and went straight to the nonfiction section 662. He settled down in a beanbag chair to relax and read about blowing things up.

Sam finally got the book he wanted a little after ten o’clock, and he spent the next hour or so translating its Latin and taking careful note of its illustrations. It was good information, but nothing really new, and he finished with a frustrated sigh. Then he checked the appendix, and sure enough, the author had a list of references. Sam made a copy of the reference page then carried the book over to Mrs. Johnson to ask for her help.

“Of course,” she said cheerfully and started humming as she typed in search terms. Sam waited respectfully; he knew that reference librarians lived for the hunt. After a few moments she looked up. “These three,” she said, pointing on the page, “are in the Vatican, and they’re recently been placed online. This one has yet to be digitized, but it’s in Rochester.”

“Rochester, New York?”

“Rochester, Minnesota. It’s about three and a half hours away.”

Sam nodded. It would be less than three hours, the way Dean drove. “Who has it?”

“The library at Crossroads University. It’s part of their collection of biblical apocrypha.”

Sam blinked at the name but just smiled and said, “Thank you so much, Mrs. Johnson. You’ve been a great help,” and she smiled back and said she was glad to be of service.

Sam checked the online references from the Vatican but didn’t find much useful there, either. It was road trip time. He found Dean on the ground floor, reading about explosives. “Let’s go,” Sam said, and Dean left the book on a table. “We’re going to Rochester,” Sam said as they headed for the door.

“New York?”

“Minnesota.”

“Let’s go,” Dean said, and they got in their car. The landscape on Interstate 35 was monotonously familiar, empty fields with traces of snow, barns and houses, and the occasional stand of leafless trees. Around noon they stopped for gas and food. As they were waiting to pull out of the restaurant parking lot, Sam saw a brunette with her hair in a ponytail drive by in a powder-blue 1989 Corvette, and he turned to get a better look.

“Is she hot?” Dean asked, swiveling his head to see, but the Corvette had already gone to a gas station down the street.

“I think it was the girl from last night.”

“Was she following us?” Dean demanded.

“Maybe,” Sam said then added, “Or trying to.”

“Let’s find out,” Dean said, and he got on the interstate, holding the speedometer steady just under sixty-five. About twenty minutes later, the Corvette appeared in their rear view mirror. Dean sped up, then pulled off the interstate. They watched from an overpass as her car drove on by. She didn’t come back looking for them. Dean looked at Sam and asked, “Coincidence?”

“This is the only interstate north out of Des Moines,” Sam pointed out, and then they both shrugged. They got back on the road and drove for an hour, until Dean called for a pit stop. At the rest area, a powder-blue Corvette was parked on the other side of the building.

“Coincidence,” Dean said darkly.

“This is the only rest area for fifty miles,” Sam said. “The minivan full of kids has been on the road with us the whole time, too.”

“Yeah, and so has that pickup truck with a coat hanger for an antenna,” Dean said. “I guess.” They took care of business then got back in their car. The Corvette was gone. “I wonder if she thinks we’re following her,” Dean said as he put the car in reverse.

Sam shook his head. “She’s probably not as paranoid as we are.”

“Lucky her,” Dean muttered and pulled back onto the road. Sam closed his eyes and tried to sleep.

They got to the university at twenty to four. “The place closes at four on Fridays,” Dean said, reading the sign on the door as he yanked open the library door. “Hope you read fast.”

“We can make copies,” Sam said. The special collections room was on the second floor, but when they got to the top of the stairs Dean started swearing, because below them, coming in the library door, was that same slim brunette with the ponytail. “Dart-Girl followed us here,” Dean said in quiet outrage as they walked quickly to the reference desk.

“Not on the road,” Sam protested. “We would have seen her.”

“That means she knew exactly where we were going,” Dean said grimly.

“Or she’s looking for the same thing we are,” Sam said. “I bet she’s the one who had the book this morning.”

“Yeah, well, this time it’s our turn to go first,” Dean said then turned to smile triumphantly at Dart-Girl when she arrived at the top of the stairs, leaving Sam to talk to the librarian.

Dart-Girl checked her stride when she saw them then came forward anyway, her eyes wary but determined. “Are you following me?” she asked in a library-quiet but very intense voice when she got closer.

“We got here first,” Dean pointed out.

“You were watching me from the overpass,” she shot back. “Then you followed me to the rest stop.”

This girl was just as paranoid as they were. Sam felt oddly reassured. “We didn’t even know you were at the rest stop,” he told her.

“And we thought you were following us,” Dean put in.

Her eyebrows went up in surprise just as Sam said, “But I think we were both following this.” He held up the binder the librarian had just given him, and Dart-Girl tracked it, her brown eyes as intent and determined as any predator when its prey is in sight. “Why?” Sam asked.

“I’m researching a story,” she said. “For a book.”

Sam almost smiled, because that was one of his and Dean’s usual cover stories; people expected reporters and authors to be nosy and ask a lot of questions.

Dean clearly wasn’t buying it, either. He snorted and told her, “You’re a lousy liar.”

Dart-Girl looked him over, looked right _through_ him. “And you take pride in being good at lying.”

“Yeah,” Dean said, his voice getting louder, causing heads to turn. “I do.”

The reference librarian was staring at them with narrowed eyes, and the library would be closing soon. “Come on,” Sam said to Dean and the girl, and they went into one of the study rooms with glass windows. Sam shut the door. “Look,” he said to the girl, trying to calm everyone down, “we’re just—”

“What do you want with these books?” Dean broke in.

She looked straight at him, cool and calm. “I want to learn how to kill an angel.”


	3. Looking for the Answer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam is invited to a girl's hotel room

### Friday, 12 March 2010 - Rochester, Minnesota

As soon as Ruth said she wanted to kill an angel, she got what she was looking for: the two young men were intensely interested (even if they did try to hide it), not horrified or surprised or bored, which meant that they really were just walking the same trail as she was, and not trailing her. She relaxed, but only a little, because she was getting the distinct impression that Dart-Boy and Hippy-Puppy could follow most any trail … and kill most of what bothered them.

So could she, thanks to her Uncle Pete, Sensei Yukari, and Staff Sergeant Zimsky, but she didn’t want these two guys trying to kill her. Or getting in her way. She needed to neutralize the opposition.

“Kill an angel,” Dart-Boy repeated flatly then glanced at his taller companion, quirked an eyebrow, and said, “Huh.” Then he started to study her. Ruth opted for the “you’re cute but I don’t have time for you right now” look then turned her attention to the guy with the way-too-long hair, because he was the one with the book.

Hippy-Puppy ran a hand through that hair, his hazel eyes narrowed a little and his brow furrowed in confusion, and asked, “Um … why? I mean, aren’t angels the good guys?”

“Not in my story,” Ruth said. In her story, angels were slaughtering each other. She did not like her story. But then, she wasn’t the one making it up. She just saw it in her dreams.

“Huh.” This time it was Hippy-Puppy saying it. He looked her over, just like Dart-Boy was still doing, then shifted the binder to his left hand and held out his right hand for her to shake, saying, “I’m Sam Winchester, and this is my brother, Dean.”

Being a leftie, Ruth had never liked shaking hands. and it was even worse now, ever since her arm had taken that hit. She shook his hand just once and dropped it but tried to make up for it with a pleasant smile along with her name. “I’m Ruth Halston.”

Hippy-Puppy—Sam, she should call him now—pulled out his chair, and they all three sat down. Dean (formerly Dart-Boy) straddled the chair at the end of the table and asked, “So what is your story?”

“It’s too long to tell now,” she said, adding another smile. “The library closes at four, and special collections isn’t open on weekends.”

“I’ll make copies,” Dean volunteered then snatched the binder from Sam and walked out. Then Dean stuck his head back in the room and said, “You two young folk get acquainted now.” He winked at his brother and shut the door again. Sam sighed and ground his teeth a little in irritation, but didn’t complain.

Ruth recognized sibling teasing all too well. “How much older is your brother?”

“Four years,” Sam said and ran a hand through his hair again. “You have a brother?”

“Yes.”

He gave her a rueful grin and asked: “Older or younger?”

“Older. But only by fourteen minutes.” Her brother, Nathan, was why she was here. Obviously, Sam and Dean had a different reason. “Why do you want to read these books?”

Sam almost smiled, the way she had seen him do a couple times before, and he said, “It’s a long story.” Then he added, “Like yours.”

Those words were sharp and serious, and again, Ruth caught the impression of a determined and dangerous man. He moved with a deceptively loose and gangly walk, like a puppy who hadn’t quite grown into his feet, but Ruth had watched him last night at the dart game, and the strength and control in his upper body were clear even under the loose plaid flannel shirt he wore. She didn’t feel like “getting acquainted” so she said nothing. Sam just sat there, too.

After a few minutes Sam said, “Let’s go,” and stood up and shoved back his chair. “Dean’s probably done.”

Dean was done. In fact, he had already given the binder back to the librarian, who had locked it away and gone home. Ruth held out her hand for her copy, but Dean shook his head with a smile, saying, “After we get your story.”

Ruth breathed out slowly through her nose to stop herself from snarling at him in frustration or smacking him in righteous rage. She could tell him to pound sand. She could wait until Monday and get the binder from the librarian then. But time was running out, and these two might know something she could use. Intelligence won wars, and it was way cheaper than blood.

So she smiled and said, “All right” then followed their old black car to a pool hall in town. The place served cheap beer and stale popcorn and was more crowded than she liked—Sam got bumped from behind and splashed some water on her as they maneuvered their way back from the restrooms—but at least the music and the talking were loud enough so that they wouldn’t be overheard.

Ruth slid into the corner booth, facing the guys. “So,” Dean began, pouring them each a beer out of a plastic pitcher into clear plastic cups, “what’s your story?”

An angel spoke to me when I was four years old, in our garden near the birdfeeder. I used to think it lived there. It came and went with the sound of mighty wings and a rush of cold air that tasted of cinnamon, sweet to smell yet bitter and dusty on the tongue. All my life, I thought it was our own guardian angel, watching over my brother and me. I thought it would protect us.

I was wrong.

Ruth didn’t say any of that. It sounded crazy. “In the story,” she told Sam and Dean, “an angel visits a young boy and watches over him. When the boy is grown, the angel asks him for help, and the boy agrees. But the angel betrays and abandons him. The boy realizes the angel is not a true agent of the Lord and decides to stop it.”

“By killing it,” Sam prompted.

“Perhaps,” Ruth said. “I’m not sure how the plot will turn out. But right now, that’s the boy’s plan.” She took a sip of her beer then wished she hadn’t. It wasn’t very good.

“This angel isn’t, by any chance, named Zachariah, is it?” Dean asked.

“No, its name is Michael,” she said.

“As in: Michael the archangel?” Sam asked.

“Yes.”

Dean leaned toward her across the sticky table and demanded, “Have you seen him?”

“Dean—,” Sam said in quick warning, even as Dean leaned back, pretending he didn’t care.

But he did care. Ruth could tell. “This is an angel we’re talking about,” she reminded them. “In a story.” She leaned back slightly herself, the better to see both Dean and Sam as she asked, “Have you ever seen an angel?”

Sam just sat there and looked confused. Dean’s quick smile was cheerful—and very fake. He wasn’t lying very well now. “Like you said,” Dean replied, lifting his beer in a toast, “we’re talking about angels.”

They were indeed. Angels were all she’d thought about for the past five days, ever since her visit to Nathan in the hospital.

 

### THEN: Queen of Peace Hospital, Minnesota

Ruth sat at her brother’s bedside, hoping for some sign of consciousness, of recognition, of anything, but his hand was limp in hers and his face was slack and empty. A thin line of drool had run from the corner of his mouth to his chin.

As she stood and wiped his face with a tissue, someone knocked on the door. “Mr. Lukas!” she said in surprise. Ruth hadn’t seen the old caretaker from St. Peter’s in years. Mr. Lukas didn’t look any different from what she remembered from back then: same uncombed hair, same crinkles around the eyes. Even his green jacket looked the same.

“I heard what happened to Nathan,” Mr. Lukas said as he came into the room. “Thought I’d stop by.”

Ruth nodded stiffly, appreciating the visit even as she was wishing Mr. Lukas hadn’t come. She hated for other people to see Nathan like this, so helpless, so broken. Either they looked horrified and repulsed or they put on the sympathetic “such a pity” face.

But all Mr. Lukas did was to lay a light hand, just the tips of his fingers, really, on Nathan’s forehead and close his eyes for a moment, as if he were praying. Then he stepped back and looked at her to say, “I’m sorry.”

Ruth nodded again. “The doctors don’t know— They say…” She took a deep breath then motioned to the pair of chairs by the window, and she and Mr. Lukas sat down. “Mom said you had moved to Ohio?” Ruth said, because she wasn’t ready to talk about Nathan, not right now. "Back in 2001, right about the time Nathan and I left Blue Earth?"

“Yes, I had a job at a university in Springfield, but I moved to Florida about two years ago, still looking for someplace warm,” Mr. Lukas said with a little smile that disappeared when he added, “I haven't been back to Blue Earth since 2006, when Father Murphy was killed.”

“I still can’t believe he was murdered like that,” Ruth said. Her mom had sent her the newspaper clippings. “In his own church.”

“Holy Ground isn’t what it used to be,” Mr. Lukas said. He tilted his head as he looked her over, the way grownups do to kids. “Seems like you two were in the Christmas pageant only a year ago, instead of twenty,” he said. “You made a good Mary, and Nate played Gabriel well. But I guess he goes by Nathan now?”

“Since he was twelve.” It had taken her two years to learn to call him by his grownup name. “You know, he really appreciated you helping him learn his lines,” Ruth told Mr. Lukas, surprised to find herself smiling at the memory. She felt as if she hadn’t smiled in weeks.

“No problem,” Mr. Lukas said. “I learned those lines a long time ago.”

The Christmas pageant was a tradition at St. Peter’s, Ruth knew. Mr. Lukas had probably helped a lot of kids over the years.

“How did Nathan end up in Detroit?” Mr. Lukas asked.

“We have no idea. He could have frozen that night. His feet were a mess. They amputated two toes. He hasn’t spoken at all.” She bit into her lower lip before she whispered, “They say he may never wake up again.”

Mr. Lukas patted the back of her hand, and she gripped his hand tightly with her own. “Have you been praying?” Mr. Lukas asked quietly. “Going to Mass?” When Ruth shook her head, he said, “You know, Father Murphy always recommended people with troubles go every day. And I happen to know there’s a Mass at one o’clock at St. Jude’s.”

“It is Sunday,” Ruth said, blearily counting back the days. “I should go.”

“You should. I’ll stay here with Nathan,” Mr. Lukas offered.

“Thank you.” Ruth drew a shaky breath as she stood.

“What’s your brother’s confirmation name?” Mr. Lukas asked her as put on her coat.

“Michael.” Nathan had taken their garden angel’s name.

“You should pray to St. Michael then. And to your patron saint, too.”

“That’s Mary, the Mother of God,” Ruth replied. “I always pray to her.”

“Why, so do I.” His eyes crinkled in a smile. “Hurry now.”

So Ruth hurried to Mass and found that Mr. Lukas and Father Murphy were right. It was comforting, to say the prayers and sing the songs she knew so well, and to receive the body and blood of the Savior. She stayed afterwards to pray to St. Michael the Archangel and the Holy Mother, then went back to the hospital, feeling better, even stronger somehow.

Mr. Lukas kissed her on the forehead before he left, and as she sat in the chair next to Nathan that afternoon, Ruth dreamed.

_An angel wheels above her, silent and serene. The sand is warm under her feet, the air is cool, and the sun hangs high in the sky. She watches the angel, white wings gleaming in the sunshine, then sees its shadow ripple over her bare skin. She is unclothed, and she is unashamed. When she looks up again, the angel is gone._

_But now it stands beside her, the great wings furled and gleaming. A thousand eyes of silver flame shimmer as it gazes upon her, a thousand tongues of red fire flicker as it eats the air, as it licks the salt from her skin._

_It knows her now. It has tasted her._

_Ruth licks her lips and tastes cinnamon, bitter and dusty and dry. She knows this angel from the garden long ago. She has tasted it. This is the angel she had summoned with her prayers. She calls it now by name: “Michael!” and the ancient words flow out across the sands: Who is like the Lord._

_The angel answers with silence, for nothing is like God. “Ruth,” it names her, a ripple down her spine, a word that means friend._

_“My brother is wounded,” she tells Michael. “His spirit has fled.”_

_“It is not a sundering of soul.” The angel’s words are felt more than heard, thrumming along her bones. “Rather, his soul is spread too thin. His vessel was flawed. It could not contain me, and now it cannot contain him.”_

_“Contain you?” she repeats, the words stumbling stupidly in her mouth._

_“I asked him for the use of his body, to help me win a war. He was my vessel on the earth.”_

_Ruth shakes her head, and the silk tips of her hair dance across her shoulders, surprising her with softness, softness that is wrong in this place of sand and sky. “He said he had not dreamed of angels.”_

_“He had no need to dream. I sent Zachariah to him. And I told Nathan not to tell you.”_

_A lie of omission was still a lie. “You made him deceive me?” she demands, outrage flaring hot and liquid through her veins._

_“His choice was his own,” the angel says. “As all human choices are.” In a shudder of wings, a thousand red tongues lick a thousand silver eyes. “God has decreed it must be so.” The angel is still again, perfectly contained. “His gift to you.”_

_“And Nathan agreed to be your vessel?” she asks, trying to understand._

_“Yes.” The word whips away in the wind. “He said yes to me. Of his own free will.”_

_“Then heal him,” she pleads, her arms spread wide, her hands open, empty, waiting. “Fix the vessel of his soul.” The angel is silent, still and serene. “Please,” she whispers, dropping to her knees. “Michael, for the love of God…”_

_“I do everything for the love of God,” it tells her, its gaze as blank and pitiless as the sun, a thousand-yard stare from a thousand lidless eyes_ _. “Not for love of you.”_

_Ruth rises to her feet, shaking with rage at this brutal betrayal. “He served you. You owe him!”_

_“He was a weapon, one of many,” the angel says, and it is already turned to the sky, away from her. “And I am still fighting a war.”_

_That last word has a life—and a death—of its own. War slithers through the sand, a hiss of pain. War climbs the distant hills, a scrape across the skin. War screams across the sky, a rip within the mind._

_With a rush of mighty wings, Michael is gone, and Ruth shivers with sudden cold._

_Above her, the blue sky is empty. The sun hangs just above the mountains, a sullen disc of burnished bronze, and the wind tastes of cinnamon and dust and war._

Ruth had woken, her heart pounding with fear and with rage, not sure what it meant, but definitely sure of one thing.

She was going to kill that bastard Michael.

For the last year and a half, angels had been haunting her dreams. Lately she had begun to wonder if they had been haunting her and Nathan all their lives. Or maybe hunting was a better word. Well, right now Ruth hunting that bastard Michael, and the trail had led her to this crowded, noisy pool hall with two very interesting men. And these Winchester brothers knew something; she could tell.

“Angels smell of cinnamon,” Ruth volunteered, for you have to give in order to get, and suddenly both Sam and Dean went very still. “And when they leave, you can hear the rush of air from mighty wings.”

Sam leaned in, his hair falling forward over his eyes, to say, “The space is cold where they have stood.”

The three of them sat there, looking at each other, slowly letting go of the camouflage of lies, until Sam asked softly: “Is this about your brother?”

Ruth nodded, and Dean sucked in a breath of air before he asked, “What kind of ‘help’ did Michael need?”

“He asked my brother to help him win a war,” she answered. “And my brother said yes.” Sam and Dean exchanged glances, and Ruth could feel tears starting in her eyes.

She quickly ducked her head and took another sip of beer. After a moment she looked up to report: “That was last month, on February sixteenth. A week ago they found Nathan wandering the streets in Detroit, not knowing who he was. The doctors looked for head trauma. Then they starting testing him for drugs. There’s nothing physically wrong with him,” she said. “He’s just…” She stopped, determined not to cry.

“He’s just not there,” Sam supplied, and Ruth found herself looking into his eyes and not really minding if he saw her tears.

“Mind frickers,” Dean swore then swallowed half his beer. He put the cup down and looked at her, his head tilted to one side. “So that plan is yours. You’re going to kill Michael for revenge.”

“Not revenge,” Ruth denied. Well, not only revenge. “I want to stop him before he does it again.”

“Think he will?” asked Sam.

“I know he’s going to try,” she replied.

“So you have seen him,” Sam said, zeroing in on her words just like a lawyer on TV.

Ruth didn’t respond to that. She had done enough talking. It was their turn. “Have you ever seen an angel?” she repeated.

“Oh, yeah,” Dean said, snarling the words as if they were a curse. He added, “They’re basically dicks with wings.” He stared into his beer cup. “Even the girl angels.”

“But you haven’t seen Michael,” she noted, because otherwise he wouldn’t have been that curious.

“Only once, back … a while ago. He usually sends his minion, Zachariah."

Ruth knew that name. “Michael told me he'd sent Zachariah to Nathan."

"Nathan didn't tell you himself?" Sam asked.

When Ruth--both angry and shamed at her brother's lack of trust--shook her head, the two brothers sitting across from her exchanged a flashing glance then avoided each others' eyes, both of them tight-jawed and thin-lipped. Maybe Nathan wasn't the only one an angel had asked to lie.

"Anyway," Sam said, picking up the conversation again, "what we see isn’t an angel’s true form. They use humans as vessels when they’re on Earth, only the humans have to say yes first.”

Like Nathan had said yes, being honorable and devout and brave. Yet: “Flawed,” the angel had called him. It had found her brother flawed and left him broken, and then just disappeared. That was one angel, Ruth thought again, that she really wanted to watch die.

“I’ve never seen Zachariah either, not really,” Dean was saying. “Seeing a real angel will burn out your eyes and make your ears bleed.” He added in an undertone, “And crap your pants.”

Ruth was beginning to like Dean better. That last remark reminded her of Staff Sergeant Zimsky, who had a habit of saying things that were bluntly crude, always true, and useful to know. “What can you tell me about this war Michael wants to win?”

“Oh, it’s just the apocalypse,” Dean said with a casual wave of his hand. “The end of the world. Preceded by the four perilous ponies—War, Famine, Plague, and Death—and followed by a rain of blood and a torrent of frogs.”

“The frogs happened with Moses,” Sam corrected. “The Book of Revelation has locusts.”

“Whatever,” Dean said, with another wave of his hand. “It ends with Lucifer and Michael fighting a battle to the death, destroying half our planet in the process. But to come to Earth, they need vessels. Humans.”

“Oh,” she said softly, finally seeing what Nathan had meant when he’d said his covert op could change the world. Ruth looked back and forth between Sam and Dean before guessing, “So which one of you does Michael want as a vessel?”

Dean raised his hand, cleared his throat, and announced, “That would be me.”

“Huh,” Ruth said in surprise. He didn’t strike her as the angelic type. But it didn’t matter. “And you said no,” she guessed again.

“Damn straight I said no! A couple of times. But angels are persistent buggers.”

“Like drunk guys in a bar,” Ruth observed.

“Yeah, except for the whole ‘breaking your legs’ or ‘ripping out your lungs’ or ‘making you puke your stomach out in bloody scraps’ part when you turn them down,” Dean said.

Ruth grimaced, remembering a Marine who’d been trying to breathe with half his chest ripped open and a piece of his lung in his hands.

“Like he said,” Sam explained, “angels are persistent.” Then he turned to Dean. “Maybe Michael got tired of waiting? So he tried Ruth’s brother instead of you, only it didn’t last very long.”

Ruth knew that meant Nathan hadn’t lasted very long. He was flawed. Used up. Tossed away. Dying in a hospital bed, day by day. Ruth was done telling her story; she needed intel, fast. “How do you kill an angel?”

Sam shook his head. “You don’t. Only other angels can.”

“A circle of burning holy oil will trap them,” Dean offered. “The fire can kill them, but only when they’re in a vessel. You can’t even touch them unless they’re in a vessel.”

Not good enough. Maybe the ancient writings would have more, maybe even how to find one of those silver knives she’d seen the angel use in her dream. “Thanks for the beer and the info,” Ruth said to Dean and Sam. “I’d like my copy now.”

“Sure,” Dean said. “It’s still in the car.” He dropped some cash on the table, and they went to the parking lot. “Here you go,” he said, handing her some papers. Then he smiled, not in a particularly nice way. “Good luck with that. It’s in Latin.”

Ruth wasn’t surprised. The book this morning had been in Latin too, and she had her dictionaries in the car. She nodded and took the papers and started to walk away.

Sam caught up to her at her car. “You can translate Latin?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Want to work with me? We could be done in half the time, and check each others' translations.” When she hesitated he added, “I’ll show you what I translated this morning in Des Moines.”

He looked like a puppy bringing her a stick to throw, hopeful and eager, only without the wagging tail. And having a partner would definitely help. She wasn’t sure about some of the words. “All right,” Ruth agreed then said something she had never said to a guy before, and would definitely not have said to Dean: “Let’s go find a hotel room.”

* * *

They checked into a hotel not far from the pool hall. Sam and Dean got a room next to Ruth’s, and then Dean offered to bring back food. “Chinese OK?” Dean asked.

“Great,” Ruth said, handing him a twenty. “Anything Szechuan’s good; I like spicy. And if they’ve got it, I like Kirin beer.”

Dean opened his mouth, probably to make some smart-ass suggestive comment about him liking “hot and spicy” too, but Sam cut in with, “Moo shu pork for me, OK?” before his brother could say something stupid and tick her off.

“Got it,” Dean said, with the wrinkle of the nose that let Sam know Dean knew exactly why Sam had spoken up when he did. Then he checked out Ruth’s backside and winked at Sam on his way out, shutting the door vigorously enough to call it a slam.

“Ready to translate?” Ruth asked, looking up. She had three different Latin books, a pad of paper, sharpened pencils, and the documents all neatly laid out on the table. A laptop was ready nearby.

“Sure,” Sam said, plugging in the battery for his laptop.. “How do you know Latin?” he asked as his laptop beeped and whirred.

“Twelve years of Catholic school. You?”

“I was pre-law in college, and ancient lore is kind of hobby for me.” Sam wasn’t in the mood to discuss the life of a hunter with her; angels and the apocalypse were enough. They each took a dictionary and got to work. They’d just finished deciding a word was in the ablative case and not the accusative when Dean arrived with the food.

He took one look at the array of papers spread out on the bed and the table then declared: “We are eating in the other room.” Sam and Ruth followed him next door. There were only two chairs, so Sam pulled the little round table over to the bed. Ruth sat on the bed, cross-legged, and Sam and Dean took the chairs. “So, what do you see when you dream of angels?” Dean asked her, dipping his egg roll into gooey red sauce.

Ruth expertly used a pair of chopsticks—with her left hand—to pick up a piece of chicken. “Usually, I get to watch them die.” She popped the meat into her mouth and chewed.

“If you already know how to kill them,” Sam asked, “why did you ask us and why do you need these old writings?”

She paused with her hand around the neck of her beer bottle and answered, “Because I can’t wave my hand and explode an angel into little bloody shreds.”

Sam winced, remembering how Castiel had died last summer. They’d found one of his teeth in Chuck’s hair. Castiel had thought God had brought him back to life, and last week in the garden of Heaven, the angel Joshua had said that was true, but Joshua had also said that God did not think it was his place “to interfere” and Raphael had said that Lucifer had brought Castiel back, so Sam wasn’t sure what to believe.

Castiel wasn’t sure, either, not anymore. When they told Cas that Joshua said God wasn’t going to help, Cas had been outraged. “Joshua’s lying,” he’d insisted, but eventually, he believed. That belief had shattered his faith, and Castiel had abandoned his search for God.

“This is useless,” he’d said, handing the god-finder amulet back to Dean, the amulet Sam had given to his brother for Christmas back when they were kids and that Dean had worn every single day for the past eighteen years. Dean had followed Cas’s lead and dropped the amulet in the trash on his way out the door.

Sam had picked the amulet up. Bobby had said the amulet was “real special,” and Cas had used it try to find God. It wasn’t wise to leave magical things just lying around. And maybe Dean would want it back, someday.

“Do you have dreams of angels?” Ruth asked before taking a swig of beer.

Fallen angels were still angels. “They started about six months ago for me,” Sam said. “The angel looked just like his vessel, or like somebody I already knew.” Sam deliberately did not mention Lucifer by name.

“Yeah, mine too,” Dean put in. “Which angels did you see? What did they look like?”

“They’re all … wings, mostly. With fire and wind and a thousand silver eyes. Sometimes I see them in their vessels. Once there were two that looked like men, fighting, and a third—a woman—stabbed one from behind.”

“When?” Sam asked immediately.

“A few days before Christmas, this year.”

Sam had spent this Christmas in the hospital, sitting by Dean’s bed, waiting for him to heal from the beating he’d taken from the demon Alastair. Another fun-filled holiday for the Winchester clan.

Castiel had reported that Uriel was dead, but not how. Sam looked at Dean, and got back a quirked eyebrow and a thoughtful gaze. They’d talk about it later; Sam was sure.

“But the vessels’ faces were always in shadow,” Ruth was saying, “like they do on TV when they don’t want you to know who people are.”

“Huh,” Dean said after a moment, and he and Sam looked at each other, shrugged, and went back to eating.

“Maybe the wings and eyes are their true form, and it’s OK to see it in dreams?” Ruth suggested.

“Maybe,” Dean allowed, chewing thoughtfully. “Zachariah told us he had four faces, and one was a lion. I bet one of the others is an ass.”

“When did you start having dreams?” Sam asked her, hoping to establish a complete timeline. Michael had taken Ruth’s brother as his vessel right when Sam and Dean had gotten Famine’s ring, and he’d abandoned Nathan as soon as Sam and Dean had come back from their trip to heaven. It could be coincidence, or it could be something more.

“September eighteenth,” she said. “Two thousand eight.”

Sam lifted his eyebrows in surprise. Not too many people remembered dates that well. The dream must have made a real impression on her. That date was special in other ways, too. “Dean, that’s the same day you … got back.” Sam didn’t want to bring up Dean’s trip to hell in front of Ruth. “And the same day Anna started hearing the angels.”

“I’d like to talk to Anna,” Ruth said immediately.

“Well, you can’t,” Dean told her. “She’s dead.” He stabbed at his food but didn’t eat it.

Ruth gave him a sidelong look but let him be, and Sam breathed a silent sigh of relief. He knew that Dean wouldn’t want to talk about Anna, not after she had tried to kill Mom and Dad just to keep Dean from even being born. Not after Dean had seen Anna stab Sam then watched as Michael burned Anna alive from the inside.

Not after Anna had forgotten what it meant to be human, to care.

Sam gave his attention to the food, because Dean was eating again and Ruth had a good appetite, so the level in the cartons was going down fast. They were ready for the fortune cookies when Dean said suddenly, “Do you have a picture of your brother?”

Ruth wiped her hands on a napkin before pulling a picture from her wallet and setting it on the table. The guy in the picture had a lean face and dark eyes, like Ruth, but his dark hair was cut short in a military buzz. His brown leather jacket had a fake fur collar, and the scenery behind him was desert sand and barren hills.

Dean leaned in for a closer look. “Is that a flight jacket?”

“Yeah, Nathan’s a Marine V-22 pilot,” Ruth answered. “He was with his squadron in Iraq when Michael ‘recruited’ him for this … other war.”

“Damn it,” Dean muttered then leaned back in his chair, rubbing his hand over his eyes. He looked at Ruth to say, “I’m sorry about your brother.”

Ruth nodded, her mouth tight. “Thanks.” She carefully put the picture away. She stood and cleaned up her trash, said, “Thanks for getting the food, and the Kirin beer,” to Dean and “Videbo tuum,” to Sam, then took another beer with her to the other room.

Dean looked at Sam. “Viddy-bow-tomb?”

“It’s Latin for ‘I’ll see you.’”

“Sounds like you get to do homework,” Dean said then ostentatiously tilted his chair back on two legs, put his feet on the bed, and opened another beer. “Me, I get to watch TV.”

Sam left Dean to enjoy himself and went to work with Ruth. They finished around ten, then spent another couple of hours comparing and adjusting their translations, reading stuff online, and trying to make sense of it all.

Finally, Ruth undid her ponytail and ran her fingers through her hair. “So,” she said, “to kill an angel, besides those silver knives, it looks like we would need control of a mythical beast with seven heads, the scepter of the Almighty, the scythe of Death, or an angel’s flaming sword from the gates of paradise.” She slumped back in her chair, her sign turning into a yawn. “I haven’t seen any of those for sale on EBay.”

“Holy oil could do it, and we can get that,” Sam said. “But I’m not sure if it would kill only the human vessel or the angel itself. This last passage…” He picked it up to read, but found himself yawning again. “I’m sorry; I’m beat. Can we sleep on this and talk at breakfast tomorrow? Maybe we’ll see something new then.”

“Good idea,” she said. “Would nine-thirty be OK? Or is that too late?”

“Nine-thirty would work great,” Sam said. “It’ll be nice to sleep in for a change.”

A little later, as he stared at himself in the mirror in his hotel bathroom, Sam tried to remember the last time he’d gotten a good night’s sleep and woken up feeling refreshed and ready for the day, instead of either dragging his sorry ass out of bed and stumbling around for coffee, or bolting wide awake in sheer terror with his heart slamming against his ribs. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept without dreams.

Definitely before Lucifer had put on Jess’s form in Sam’s dream then slithered into Sam’s bed. That had been six months ago. Lucifer had been free for nearly a year, and it showed. Weather was going bat-shit crazy all over the planet, the Antichrist had appeared in Nebraska, and angels were stabbing each other from behind.

Meanwhile, he and Dean were running ragged on the knife-edge of exhaustion and frustration, with no idea how to stop anything except by saying “no.”

And part of Sam really wanted to say yes. He wanted to give in, to let go, to close his eyes and relax, so that he could savor the hot gush of demon blood into his mouth as he ripped open the softness of a throat and licked it clean. He wanted to taste the blood, rich and heavy on his tongue. He wanted to feel it coursing through his veins, hot and strong. He craved that cold fire in his mind. He lusted for that power.

Lucifer would let him say yes. Lucifer would bring him demons to drink. Lucifer would let him sleep without dreams. Lucifer would accept him for who he was.

Sam brushed his teeth for a long time. Then he spat into the sink, leaning on the counter, his forehead pressed against the cold mirror, watching the water spiral down.

They were running out of time.


	4. Things Fall Apart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A hunt for pie leads Sam and Dean down a dangerous road.

### Saturday, 13 March 2010 - Rochester, Minnesota

Sam called Bobby the next morning and told him about Ruth and her brother who’d been brain-fried by Michael. “So, I was wondering,” Sam said, “could she come by your place to do research? She might find something, and we need all the help we can get, especially if Dean and I are busy with a job.”

“I suppose,” Bobby said. “You’d better warn her not to expect any seals of good housekeeping. I didn’t get the vacuuming done this year.”

“I don’t think that’ll bother her any.” Sam didn’t see Ruth as the prissy type of girl.

“Is she pretty?”

“Um, yeah, I guess,” Sam said.

“Uh-huh,” he said. “You sweet on her?”

“What? No! I just met her, Bobby.”

“So? How long does it take?”

For Dean, about twenty-five minutes. Which, considering the traveling life they led, made sense. But Sam didn’t move that fast. He’d known Jess for months before he’d asked her out. He’d known Madison for three days, and then she had died. “Not long enough, Bobby,” Sam said, the words coming out ragged. He had never had long enough.

The silence hung empty between them before Bobby said gruffly, “Sorry. I know.”

Sam nodded and muttered, “Yeah,” because Bobby hadn’t had long enough, either. They’d each had to kill a woman they loved, to get rid of the demon she bore.

“If Ruth’s coming here,’ Bobby went on, back to business now, “you better tell her about the rest of the crap going on. She’ll be walking into a war zone. She may not want to come.”

“I’ll talk to her,” Sam promised. “Thanks, Bobby. See you soon.” Sam looked up to see Dean emerging from the bathroom, freshly shaved and wearing a towel around his hips, his hair sticking straight up in spikes. “I’m going to invite Ruth to come to Bobby’s,” Sam said. “He said it was OK.”

Dean nodded and started digging through his clothes for something to wear. “Sure. I like a girl who buys her own food. And drinks beer.” He looked up suddenly. “Hey, do you think she can cook?”

“Maybe.”

“We can hope,” Dean said. “Hello, apple pie!”

He wasn’t as happy about the late start that morning. “Nine-thirty? What’s she doing? Painting her toenails?” When they finally met for breakfast, Dean brought up the subject again, but in a slightly nicer way, though still with enough tightness to the words to show his irritation. “Busy morning?” he inquired.

“Not really,” Ruth said. “I got up at six, ran five miles, and then went to the Church of the Resurrection. Mass didn’t start until eight, which is why I asked to meet now.” She looked up from her plate laden with omelet, home fries, toast, and fruit, and asked brightly, “How has your morning been?”

“Fine.” Dean nodded, clutching his coffee cup. “Just fine.”

She gave him a cheerful nod then turned to Sam. “Thought of anything new since last night?”

“Not from what we’ve read, but we’ve got a friend named Bobby who has a lot of books of ancient lore, and some of them might have information about helping your brother. Bobby’s in Sioux Falls, only about four hours away. He said it was OK if you looked at them. Want to follow us there today?”

“Sounds like a good idea,” she said and gave him a grateful smile. “Thanks, Sam. I really had no idea where to start looking next.”

She wasn’t the only one. Sam waited until she was done eating her omelet before he mentioned demons to her.

“Demons,” she repeated slowly, setting down her fork.

“Angels ain’t the only thing that’s real,” Dean said.

She took a deep breath, sat quiet for a moment, then asked: “How do you stop demons?” They explained holy water, salt, exorcism, iron, devil’s traps, and the special demon-killing knife and gun. “No silver bullets?” she asked, sounding kind of brittle.

“Those work on werewolves and skinwalkers,” Dean told her. “Now with vamps, beheading works best. Iron works on ghosts. Or course, any iron is just temporary. To really get rid of ghosts you have to burn the bones.”

“Right,” she said, dragging the word out slow.

But she didn’t freak out, so Sam told her about some of the weird crap they’d seen at Bobby’s house: people coming back from the dead, visits from demons, people dropping not-quite-dead monsters off to bury. “It’s not safe,” Sam warned her.

“What is?” she asked, but she obviously wasn’t expecting an answer, because she picked up her fork and starting eating again, her head down. Sam finished off the last of his pancakes, and Dean sipped his coffee. Finally, Ruth pushed her plate to the side. “Thanks for the heads up,” she said. “I’ll go to Bobby’s.”

They hit the road at eleven, a straight shot going west on I-90, with Ruth and Dean taking turns being the lead car. “So, this Dart-Girl…,” Dean began when he was once again in front.

“Her name is Ruth, Dean,” Sam said.

“Yeah, right, Ruth. So, this Ruth-girl, trying to kill Michael … she’s crazy, right?”

“Crazier than us?”

“Nah,” Dean replied with a grin. “Nobody’s crazier than us. But killing Michael—no way she can do that.” The Impala hummed along, its wheels kissing the pavement a little bit at a time. Dean checked the mirror to see how close Ruth was. “But if she did—not that she can, but if she does—then Lucifer’s got no opposition.”

“So either we kill them both, or we kill only Lucifer,” Sam said.

“Yeah, like that’s going to be easy,” Dean said with a snort. “And I’m not so sure that having Michael alive and in charge would be OK.”

“If we kill both Lucifer and Michael, who does that leave except another archangel?” Sam pointed out. “Do you really want Gabriel the Trickster in charge?”

Dean shuddered. “No, but I don’t like Raphael the Prig, either.”

“If all the archangels are gone, what will keep the demons in line?”

Dean shook his head in frustration but then turned to Sam and now his grin was slightly crazed. “This is a stupid conversation, Sammy. We won’t be able to kill any archangels, any more than Dart-Girl will.”

“So we stop them,” Sam said firmly.

His brother didn’t say anything to that. A mile later, he swore as Ruth emerged from the other side of a truck and zipped past them. They played leapfrog like that for the next forty miles, until Dean pulled off the highway and parked near a Dairy Queen with a sign that read “Closed for the Season.”

Ruth put her car a few spaces over from them in the parking lot then got out. “What are we doing here?”

“Seeing America!” Dean replied. “Our roadside attractions are the stuff of legends.”

“And nightmares,” Sam muttered.

“Where else in the world can you see a statue of a fifty-five-foot green guy dedicated to frozen peas?” Dean waved his arm grandly at the Jolly Green Giant, who was standing with arms akimbo and feet apart, wearing a one-armed singlet of green leaves and crowned with a wreath.

Sam was just glad it wasn’t a pagan god expecting sacrifices. He’d seen enough of those.

“And don’t forget Sprout,” Dean added, pointing to a little ply-board silhouette on the side of the path.

“Dean, you’ve never eaten a Brussels sprout in your life.”

“But I know the song.” He proved it by singing, “Ho ho ho, green giant.” He pulled out his phone and asked, “Hey, Ruth, would you take our picture standing under the statue?”

That request was serious, and Sam understand Dean’s quick swing from rampant silliness to the deep need to have some memento of the two of them together, just doing something fun instead of running bloody from one crisis to the next. And he understand why it had to be here. Dad had taken them to this park and taken their picture, that summer they had spent with Pastor Jim.

It looked like Ruth got it too, because she nodded and said, “Sure.” She took a couple of shots of them between the giant’s feet, climbing on the black cage that was supposed to keep people from stepping on the statue. She got one shot where Dean was looking up in horror with his arms protectively over his head, like the giant was about to rain down an enormous golden shower on them. Sam cracked up at that, and Ruth snapped a shot of both of them laughing, something they hadn’t seen in a really long time.

“I’ll take one of you,” Dean offered.

But Ruth shrugged and said, “Thanks, but that’s OK. I grew up in Blue Earth; my old house is about three blocks away. So I’ve got a couple of pictures of me playing here.”

“No kidding?” Dean said. “We stayed here sometimes when we were kids, with Pastor Jim. Father Murphy, I mean. Did you know him?”

“Oh, yes. He gave me First Communion, and he heard my confession every Saturday for years.” She looked down the road to the town. “Did you know he was murdered, in his own church? Almost four years ago now.”

“Yeah,” Sam said, remembering how Dad had pulled over on the side of the road, gotten out of his truck and slammed the door, then come back to their car and told them the news in a voice shaking with grief and rage. “We heard.”

Ruth shook her head. “I still can’t believe he’s gone, especially that way.”

Dean and Sam exchanged a glance, but neither one of them spoke. What was the point of telling Ruth that her priest had been a hunter and had been slaughtered by a demon just to tick off their dad?

“I’d like to stop by the cemetery, as long as we’re here,” she said. “I can catch up to you.”

“We’ll come, too,” Sam said. Sending flowers to the funeral wasn’t the same as standing next to a man’s grave and paying your respects. They got back in their cars and followed Ruth through the town. “Sure is quiet for a Saturday afternoon,” he said to Dean, for the streets were empty and some of the houses had all their curtains drawn.

“The weather’s crummy,” Dean said, peering out the window at the overcast sky that threatened rain, or maybe snow. “And we are in Minnesota. Probably there’s a hockey game on TV.”

The cemetery was at the western edge of town, and they stood for a few moments next to the plain granite headstone. “Father James Patrick Murphy, 1951-2006” the deeply carved letters read.

Sam turned his collar up against the chill wind that scoured the open fields nearby. Dean told a story about the time he’d nearly blown up Pastor Jim’s kitchen, and Ruth talked about how he’d played basketball on Saturdays with the kids. “I’ll always remember him singing _Ave Maria_ at the Christmas pageant,” Sam said.

“Me, too,” Ruth and Dean said at the same time, and they looked at each other in surprise. “Were you at the Christmas pageant in 1990?” Dean asked.

“I was in it. So was my brother.”

“Your brother Nathan,” Dean said slowly then snapped his fingers and started to grin. “Your brother Nate. Damn, girl!” he said. “He played Gabriel, and you played Mary. And Sammy here was—”

“I was a lamb,” Sam broke in, before Dean could get started with the “Sam the Lamb” chant.

“I remember you now!” Ruth said. “We were in Mrs. Dornhof’s class together. You sat in the back.”

“Probably,” Sam said, not really remembering that one classroom out of all the others. But he did remember Nate, now that he heard the name. “Your brother and I tried to dig a hole to China in your backyard one summer.”

“Our dog loved that hole,” Ruth said then turned to Dean. “And you’re the older kid who taught Nathan how to make dart guns in the church basement.”

“Yes, indeed,” Dean said with some pride.

“Oh, my God,” Ruth said with a laugh. “We shot dart guns all over the house for years. It drove our mom crazy. And that got us started on bows and arrows when we were nine. Nathan won an archery trophy in high school. I still have my bow.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear that one lesson was so memorable,” Dean said, and he and Ruth stood there smiling at each other in happy surprise, like they had never seen each other before.

And maybe they hadn’t, not really, Sam realized. Dean had been kind of a dick lately, and Ruth had come off as kind of a bitch sometimes, but then both of them had a lot on their minds.

“Why were you two staying with Father Murphy?” Ruth asked.

“Our dad hunted demons,” Sam told her. It felt odd to tell the truth. “Sometimes he had to leave us behind, to be safe.” Not that Blue Earth had been a true haven. No place was. Sam looked again at the gravestone, and Ruth and Dean did, too.

Then Ruth knelt in prayer, and Sam and Dean backed off to give her room. Sam didn’t see any point in praying to God, now that he knew no one was listening and no one cared.

Some days, Sam didn’t see the point in anything. God wasn’t in his heaven, and all wasn’t right with the world. Lucifer was out of his cage and loose on the earth. War and Famine had been taken care of, but Plague and Death were still riding around. Castiel had given up and disappeared, the dead stalked the living, and Lucifer was stalking Sam.

Sam could feel the demon blood within him boiling, hot and hungry and aching for more. Rage pulsed with his every heartbeat, and something inside him wanted to kill.

“Hey, Sammy!” Dean had called across a hotel room one day, looking up from a book. “Did you know that Lucifer’s original name was Samael?”

Sam knew.

“Freaky, huh?” Dean had continued. “The names?”

Freaky, yeah. Or just plain freak. Sam could control it, that beast within. He could. He had to.

But some days, the only thing that kept Sam going was his determination not to disappoint Dean again. Dean had pretty much said the same to him. Neither one of them could stand up on their own; the only way they could get anywhere was to lean on each other and limp together down the road.

Ruth came up behind him, and Sam turned to greet her with a friendly smile.

“Let’s go,” Ruth said. As they walked toward the cemetery gates, she suddenly said, “My Aunt Jen lives about forty miles southwest of here. I haven’t seen her since Christmas, and I’d like to stop by. How about I catch up with you guys at Bobby’s tomorrow?”

“Yeah, sure,” Dean said with a shrug. “That’d be fine. You got the directions, right?”

“Sam gave them to me this morning; they’re in my GPS.”

They’d swapped phone numbers and email addresses, too, and she’d typed those into her phone. She also had an Ipod installed in her 1989 Corvette—no antique tapes for her. Sam indulged in music envy until they got to the cars.

“See you tomorrow,” she said and waved as she drove west out of town.

Sam was reaching for the handle of the car door when Dean looked at him over the roof of the Impala and asked, “Hey, do you think Linda’s Café on Main Street still makes those great pies?”

“We can find out,” Sam said, upbeat and cheerful, determined to make the best of this trip down memory lane with his brother.

As they walked past the elementary school and toward the center of town, Dean told stories of Mrs. Hoehn, his fifth-grade teacher, and how she had declared him “incorrigible” in front of the whole class. “Proudest moment of my life,” Dean said, laughing. “Once I found out what it meant.”

“Hey, that’s Tommy’s house,” Sam said, pointing to a dark green bungalow at the corner of Linton Street. “We used to build forts in his backyard.”

“And here comes Main Street,” Dean announced. “Right or left for Linda’s Café?”

“Left, I think,” Sam said. But they walked a few blocks and didn’t see it. “Um … right? Unless it’s closed.”

“Now that,” Dean declared, “would be a tragedy.” They were each peering down the street when Dean said, “Hey, Sam? I don’t think they’re looking for pie.”

Sam turned to see three men, moving toward them with unnatural rhythm and unnerving intent. “Demons,” he muttered savagely. And in the only place that even remotely qualified as their home town. Couldn’t they ever catch a fucking break?

“Back to the car,” Dean said, and he and Sam broke into a run.

They didn’t make it in time.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story continues in "Blue Earth, Red Sky", Part 4 of the Blood Cousins Series.


End file.
